On this Christmas Day, I am filled with joy, happiness and love. It has nothing to do with Santa Claus being good to me, or the gifts I offered to my husband and family—after all, there is a recession going on, and it has affected us. Rather, I am filled with joy, happiness and love because now, after the sociopath, life is good. In fact, life has never been better.
This is a significant, even miraculous, change for me. In the years before I met my sociopathic ex—from age 20 to 40—I didn’t feel joy, happiness or love. Instead, I was mostly numb. If anything broke through the wall of numbness, it was longing.
Then the sociopath arrived, and promised me what I so desperately wanted—an end to my longing. He said he’d love me forever. He said that once his business plans succeeded—with my financial help, of course—we’d live in “the lap of luxury.” He promised that my dreams would come true, and I believed him.
We all know how that goes.
The magnitude of his betrayal was staggering. I coped as best I could with the legal and financial consequences, but emotionally, all I could do was collapse. It was painful. It was ugly. But as I started to come through my shattered circumstances, I found that what was also shattered was the numbness. And in its place, I felt the beginnings of joy, happiness and love. I felt the spark of life.
As I read the comments on Lovefraud, I see many of you also finding that spark of life. Many of you, progressing in your healing, are rediscovering what you had lost or forgotten, making you vulnerable to the sociopath. You are rediscovering your own inner light.
On this Christmas Day, I am filled with gratitude to all of you who are building the community of healing that Lovefraud has become. It is working. We are recovering. Although we are all at different stages of our journey, I promise you, it is a journey towards joy, happiness and love.
Merry Christmas.
Dear Muldoon,
I know you said that you are going to get rip roaring drunk after the kids are asleep, but let me warn you about that too. It will make things WORSE not better to get drunk as it will make you miss him more and forget about the bad.
Stow the booze for a while, you need a CLEAR head through all of this. You can’t escape the pain. You cannot go around, under or over the pain you HAVE TO GO THROUGH IT.
Think of it like child birth—no one else can do it for you, and you can’t avoid it at this point–WE WILL HOLD YOUR HAND AND BE THERE TO COMFORT YOU, but the pain and the work is YOURS and yours alone! BUT IN THE END you will “give birth to a NEW LIFE” FOR YOU AND YOUR KIDS!
It is worth the pain, and just like in child birth if they give you drugs to dull the pain, it SLOWS DOWN THE PROCESS and is not good for the baby!
So as hard as it is, it is something you need to do NATURALLY. But the result will be WONDERFUL when the labor and the pain is over! ((((hugs))))) And my prayers for you!
The funny thing is I dont normally drink at all…drunk would be very simple and cheap abeit a temporary release…Have heard he was in the local pub a couple of nights ago rip roaring drunk and picking fights with people….the pub is only around the corner and I cannot get my head around the fact he has not come near….wondering if there is not going to be any backlash at all because he has done noting for a week to spite being close and drunk…I am not comfortable with this…can it be this easy? Perhaps he is happy to leave me to get on…perhaps he will not want to see the kids at all…perhaps he isnt as bad as I thought he would be…perhaps I never knew him at all…even the rotten side because the man I knew would not just relinquish his hold on the kids, the house, us.
Muldoon, I agree with Oxy on the drinking issue, but if you do drink, just try to avoid “drinking and dialing”
Dear muldoon,
My experience and the experience of others I have talked to that the drinking makes you feel worse because it brings out the worst ofyour feelings that your SOBER mind is keeping down….so you may “create a monster” if you let your worst feelings out. Lots of folks “drink and DIAL” and that is ALWAYS a disaster.
I realize that it is UNNERVING for him not to be doing anything YET, but I don’t need a “crystal ball” to know he is NOT through with you, or through with trying to HURT you, he may simply be getting up his “courage”—-he still has NOT gotten it that you guys are OVER, and when he really does know that, he WILL intensify his attacks. THEY ALL DO, and we already know he is VIOLENT, so DO NOT LET DOWN YOUR GUARD or start to think “he may not be so bad after all”—YOU ALREADY KNOW HOW BAD HE IS, and he will only get worse, he will NEVER BE WHAT YOU THOUGHT HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN. N*E*V*E*R——
He can and WILL be WORSE Than you ever thought he could be, so CAUTION for your safety! is the word of the day, and if he does decide to break into the house, you don’t want to be drunk on your ass and passed out when he sets fire to the house. Keep ALL your wits about your head ALL the time.
I know that just “waiting” is difficult and frustrating, it is worse than fending off an attack sometimes, but right now, you need to use this “calm before the storm” to get YOUR ducks in a row, get your “escape” bags packed, take care of your car repairs, and anything else you need to do, and get ready to file for disvorce and also for a restraining order.
Cause when the “chit hits the fan” you will not have time to do these things, you may be on the run in your night shirt! (Hugs)))) and I am continuing to pray for you and your children’s safety, peace and healing!
Dear Muldoon, you did already a great job, my congratulations. Now comes the very hard “cold turkey phase” of the “detoxification” of the addiction. Do you have a close friend you can call and vent? I for myself called my sister, even late at night, who also was involved with two P and who made me look up the word “psychopath” in Google, and I always said to her: “Is this the Lovesick Anonymous helpline?”, we both had a laugh, and then I started to vent, always the same theme, but my sister was very patient and repeated the same things every time, that he was not real, that he was a projection, that it is normal to feel like this and so on, ,and it helped a lot. I felt like an addict off the drug, and I had to have all my senses together for NOT calling him. I called my sister instead, and I called her VERY OFTEN! It lasted about two to three weeks, and I invited my sister for a very nice dinner before this christmas because of her great help. I did NOT drink, as I knew it would lower my inner barriers and I would find any excuse at once for my self to call him anyway, and I would feel more miserable afterwards. (artificial courage, that enhances his power over me because he will get it very fast that I would not dare confront him while sober). It is like in the film “High noon”, nothing happens, but the tension is tremendous. If you can stand the tension for two, three weeks you can be VERY proud of yourself, because then the confidence in yourself rises and his power vanishes slowly but surely, if you keep strictly NC, and even try to say to yourself:”STOP”, when HE is creeping in your mind. Why not give yourself a little present EVERY DAY YOU KEPT NC? Or put an amount of money aside and get yourself a spa-treatment after two weeks? Just keep busy. I had to clean and rearrange ALL my furniture in my flat. My P-father had brought my two big wardrobes I had stowed at my parent’s flat to my already overflowing small flat the day after I broke off with the P. It first was a big insult, and I got very angry as he did not inform me until 24 h prior to delivery, and I had to pack lots of boxes etc in the wee hours of a sleepless nigt. But it turned out to be the perfect thing as it was like moving in my appartment. My flat looks completely different now, and I threw out all the things that reminded me of the P. The cleaning was kind of catharsis, and in the evenings I was so tired I could even get some sleep (very important too!). I wish you all the best, and blogging helps a lot, too! They helped me a lot, and I could not think of finding a better qualified and more committed bunch of therapists than the LF-gang. Have a wonderful bright 2009 you all!
Dear all, i know what you say makes sense and I have gotten another day past without him, almost went looking earlier but then thought hell no, nothing will have changed and I am this far down the road…I am still getting my order to prevent him harrassing me and am back on track thinking of all the indignity, humilliation and beatings I have had…You are a terrific bunch and I am sure without this site I would not have gone as far as i have in being rid of him and I would be going mad now.
Hi Muldoon – congratulations on getting through a tough day! This cold turkey thing is hard – really hard, and most of us are in various phases of it. But my firsthand experience is that it does get better, and you feel less and less devastated. I’m still on the recovery trajectory, and in now way healed, but I’m definitely in a better place than I was when I first went cold turkey. There were times that I thought I was going to die of pain if I didn’t get in touch with him – but I didn’t get in touch with him, and I didn’t die, and I am definitely better for it.
For me, remembering some of the awful things he did helped me back down when I started to feel like contacting him. I only need to go two or three deep into my mental list of 20 ghastly things (it could be so much longer) he did to me, before I am totally repelled from calling the jerk.
Peace and love to you, Muldoon!
Muldoon,
For God’s sake, keep away from him. He is as crazy as a sh*thouse rat. I speak from experience. Mine left me in the dead of winter, with no propane left in the tank, to freeze to death. I was isolated (or so I thought) out in the country in an old farm house. One afternoon, I let the dog out to go, & instead of coming right back like she always did, she ran out by the barn. She wouldn’t come to me, so I got on my boots, & went after her. When I got close to her, she walked behind the barn, & there was a lawn chair set up there, with footprints to & fro. I remember screaming to myself, Oh Dear God, grabbing the dog, & running like hell back to the house. All the time after he left, I thought I was O.K. I changed the door locks, put on dead bolts, carried a spray bottle full of ammonia with me at all times, & lived like a nervous wreck until I could move into town. All the time I was out there at that farmhouse alone, he just sat & watched me. I never even knew he was there. If he had done anything to me, no one would have known for awhile. No close neighbors to hear me. I thank God everyday for watching over me that month & a half I was alone. Do I feel safe now? Not any safer, just more alert to what he is capable of. I never let my guard down. It’s a stressful way to live, But I’m alive.
Dear Stiles,
If you had told that story before I must have missed it. HOW FRIGHTENING! (((Hugs)))) I am so glad you shared that with us and with Muldoon.
Dear Muldoon,
If you feel yourself waffling, sit down and write a list of the things he did to you on love fraud. List all the humiliations, all the fears, all the things when you thought he was going to kill you. It will help and under NO circumstances contact him. He may, in fact, be watching you from the darkness, who knows. But you DO KNOW he is dangerous, so better be safe than sorry, babe! TAKE CARE OF YOU AND YOUR BABIES! (((HUGS)))
Oxy,
I don’t think I had told that to anyone until tonight. Sometimes while reading here, a memory will pop up, of something I had gone through. Yea, it was pretty frickin’ scary. It was like the Psycho shower scene, Jaws, The Birds, & every scary movie scene just wackin’ me on the head. It was almost scarier after, to think that all the time I thought I had barricaded myself in for the night, & thought I was O.K., i was only fooling myself. I would double lock all the doors & windows. pile pots & pans up in front of the doors, lock myself & my dogs in my daughter’s bedroom, make sure my spray bottle of ammonia was in my reach, cell phone on, nite lite on, then try to go to sleep. Looking back, I don’t know how I lived like that for 6 weeks, & manage to go to work everyday. Sometimes it’s almost like I was there, but not there, if that makes any sense. If God only gives you what He thinks you can handle, I think I passed His test.